The Six Nations championship is supposed to be a marathon not a sprint. That is not currently how it feels, however, after an opening weekend which has produced a runaway title favourite. If this was the Cheltenham Gold Cup many would already be putting down their binoculars and preparing to roar home a classic Irish winner with the rest of the field still way out in the country.
Nothing can ever be entirely certain on sport’s fast-spinning wheel of fate but no one present in Rome or Cardiff will be rushing to back any of the supposed rivals to Andy Farrell’s team. France were way off the pace in the first half in Marseille and the two other contests did little to suggest the remaining four nations are yet at the required level. Whichever way you shake it, it now looks distinctly like Ireland’s year.
It has also underlined the danger of staging the biggest match of the tournament on the opening night. There is no “conference” system to deliver a guaranteed showpiece endgame; just three Irish home games against Italy, Wales and Scotland in Dublin – where they lose about as often as it snows in Riyadh – and a trip to Twickenham to face an England side in rebuilding mode. Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen.
The pressure, therefore, is on Saturday’s winners England and Scotland to make some kind of significant move and prevent a totally predictable one-horse race. Having won away by three points and one point respectively in round one, both have home games this Saturday which will either supply genuine momentum or drag them back down to square one. If England lose to Warren Gatland’s Wales at Twickenham, in particular, any sense of quiet Roman satisfaction will be abruptly extinguished.
Already it seems possible the visitors will be bolstered by the return of a couple of senior players in George North and Will Rowlands while the Leicester flanker Tommy Reffell is a massive breakdown nuisance whenever he plays and Aaron Wainwright had an eye-catching game against the Scots. In addition, as Italy discovered in the first half, the hyper-aggressive new English defensive system, introduced by the former South Africa assistant coach Felix Jones, remains a work in progress.
The theory is perfectly fine. Sprint forward in a blur of white and the time and space available for ball-carriers attacking the gain line is minimised. With unfamiliar combinations and fresh faces throughout England’s squad, however, there can be cases of overenthusiasm. Italy ended up scoring three tries to England’s two and a couple of them were scored rather more easily than Steve Borthwick’s side would have liked. “We got it wrong a couple of times, didn’t we?” the fly-half George Ford said. “The main thing is calming everyone down and saying ‘mistakes happen’ but we can’t then not commit again for the rest of the game. We’ve got to keep committing to it.”
If there is one thing Wales will be keen to do from the start after their thrilling comeback against the Scots it will be upping the tempo and moving the ball at pace, which could make for a fascinating duel. England also want to be more positive but, as the Italy game reinforced, they are not going to smash through the middle of too many teams with their existing lineup. That means either drafting in bulkier alternatives at No 8 and centre or finding different, more creative ways of locating and exploiting space.
In the latter regard, and despite Ethan Roots’ man of the match award, one of England’s key players is now Tommy Freeman, exactly the kind of athletic, roving talent who can transform a team’s attacking options. If Borthwick’s side really want to prosper this year they need to get the ball into the Northampton wing’s hands more often and also look to one or two other ball carriers with a bit about them. Roots and the promising Chandler Cunningham-South enjoyed encouraging Test debuts, while Northampton’s Tom Pearson is another mobile, galloping presence who is worthy of a run at some stage.
All this is strictly relative, though. If one 80-minute tour de force does not make a season the bad news for Ireland’s opponents is that their World Cup disappointment appears to have made Farrell’s green machine all the stronger. In the marauding presence of the second-row Joe McCarthy they also have a towering new totem who already looks nailed on to tour with the British & Irish Lions in Australia next year.
Sometimes all it takes is for one or two players to step in or step up to supply a team with a whole fresh burst of energy. Ireland needed a new name to get excited about following Johnny Sexton’s retirement and Big Joe, as he is known, alongside the perennially excellent Tadhg Beirne, has visibly galvanised the rest of the Irish pack. The French, by comparison, exuded all the joie de vivre of dutiful partners on a lengthy shopping trip with their spouses.
Plod up to Edinburgh in similarly downbeat fashion next weekend and Scotland will also fancy making them pay. If England and the Scots do both arrive at round three unbeaten, their Calcutta Cup encounter at Murrayfield will crackle even more intensely than usual. Barring a truly spectacular stumble, though, it is Ireland’s trophy to lose.
